The museum is housed in the former Columbia Mills building, a major manufacturer of cotton duck cloth when it opened in 1894. The mill was the first totally electric textile mill in the world, and was the first major industrial installation of General Electric motors. For the most part, the original flooring has been preserved or reused, and still contains thousands of textile brads and rings that guided the thread through the machines and became embedded in the wood floor as they were discarded.
Adjacent to the SCSM is the Relic Room, a small but historically complete museum depicting the events leading up to, through, and after the Civil War. We continue to learn more and more about that time, and of the horrors Southern states endured. I understand that men, women, and families of both North and South were tragically affected by the conflict, but the South was burned, pillaged, and raped in some perverse belief that the Might of God must smite those who have the audacity to follow their beliefs. Who knows what the world would look like now if the South had been successful with their own revolution? Ok, enough.
A visitor follows a timeline through the Relic Room, and I won't bore you with the details, but there were a considerable number of interesting items on display, beginning in Revolutionary War days. I didn't know that South Carolina played a huge role during the war for independence.
Partisan Militia bands let by Francis Marion, "The Swamp Fox", Thomas Sumter, "The Gamecock", and Andrew Pickins, "The Fighting Elder", harassed the British supply lines and attacked patrols and camps. General Cornwallis' failure to subdue North and South Carolina gave General Washington time to strengthen his forces and unite American and French forces to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown, VA, and ensure victory.
The human side of the Civil War is clearly shown, as this picture of four brothers shows.
Interesting: the envelope was the letter.
Prices were different back then!
This intricately carved razor was seized by a Union gunboat from a blockage runner bound for Charleston.
General Sherman's intent for the South is clearly stated in his letters.
The Fourth Floor of the State Museum houses the Observatory (viewing at specified times), a collection of telescopes from hundreds of years ago, and exhibits detailing life on a plantation and in a mill town (which Columbia was for years).
The Third Floor exhibits include Transportation, Communications, and Science and Technology.
On Christmas Day, 1830, the Best Friend of Charleston chugged into history.
The first train to operate in South Carolina, the Best Friend "flew on the wings of the wind at the varied speed of fifteen to twenty five miles an hour, annihilating time and space....leaving all the world behind...like a live rocket scattering sparks and flames on either side", according to the Charleston Courier!
Of course, no museum would be complete without dinosaurs and Mastodons and prehistoric Armadillos!
After whiling away the afternoon, we stopped at Moriarty's Irish Pub in the Congaree Vista district for the best Reuben sandwich and best Irish stew we've ever had, bar none. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the time of day, but the meal was wonderful! Try it when you're here!
Of course, we couldn't let such a good "Linner" (late lunch or early dinner, your choice) end so soon, so we had to have a bit of ice cream at one of Columbia's most famous soft serve emporiums, Zesto on 12th St.
It's been an interesting and informative day, with good food and pleasant surroundings (and cool!). One more day to go, and then it's off on our next adventure!
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